“After the Tiananmen massacre,” explained Washington Post editorial board member, Keith Richburg, “China’s rulers adopted an unspoken social compact with the population: The Communist Party offers them boundless economic growth, the opportunity to get rich and some expanded personal freedoms in exchange for its continued right to rule.”
Mr. Richburg doesn’t bother to name any of these “expanded personal freedoms” to which he refers. I’m sure the Chinese people are wondering as well.
Richburg is certainly not alone in his delusion; one regularly hears this inane idea suggesting some sort of political legitimacy and justification for the CCP’s totalitarian state. In fact, in this same Post feature assessing China’s current economic woes, columnist Catherine Rampell likewise declared, “For generations, the Chinese Communist Party has held on to power partly through an implicit bargain with its citizenry: Sacrifice your freedoms, and, in exchange, we’ll guarantee ever-rising living standards.”
But there simply is no such bargain. No contract. No political compact between the Chinazi rulers and the Chinese people. That’s a figment of fuzzy Western elitist — and Rousseauvian — fantasy.
The CCP doesn’t hold power via demonstrated public support. Their power flows from the barrel of a gun, as notorious mass-murderer Chairman Mao acknowledged long ago. Not to mention fear of today’s Tiger chair.
Pretending otherwise only enables the tyranny.
Know your enemy. And if you know the Chinese state, you know it is your enemy and an enemy of the Chinese people.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
Illustration created with PicFinder.ai and DALL-E2
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3 replies on “Unspoken Contract”
The prevailing arrangement in China is nothing like a bargain or compact into which the Chinese entered freely, but the Chinese state quelled unrest not merely with violence but also by stepping away from some micro-management that had kept the Chinese people from becoming more materially prosperous. Then, on top of that loosening of constraints, the state embraced something like Water Heller’s super-Keynesianism but on steroids. The latter has of course backfired most terribly, and the Communist Party has, under Xi, tried to claw-back much of the old micro-control, further reducing materially prosperity. So the Chinese economic system is moving swiftly not merely to crisis but into catastrophe.
An unspoken contract works as long as the population is denied the option to speak. Works the same in the US.
Elections have integrity as long as it’s illegal to question the integrity.
There are no bribes as long as there are no indictments.
Really, unspoken contracts are not contracts at all and it is most interest the WAPO editor needs to construct such a nullity.
Governments are the only entitles which, in “contracts” (particularly with their citizens), feel that they can unilaterally modify or terminate all such “contracts” at will. The US does it all the time.
The CCP will be in power in China as long as the Chinese people can be controlled and, ultimately, the Chinese people permit it. There needs to be no invented unwritten and unstated contract to further explain the relationship of the Chinese population with the CCP.
The Chinese people have adapted, know they will be threatened and punished if they disagree or do not conform, and rewarded if they do.
The Chinses people are rightfully frightened by the CCP’s previous and willingness resort to violence and punishment including mass murder and genocide of those who deviate from the party line. Most have learned how to progress or succeed in their present society and, as things are getting better, are not really interested in radical change or even the unknown future of greater freedom at this time.
The ordinary Chinese citizens are really much like Americans and most other humans and will then to go along as long as things do not become intolerable.
No unspoken contract is necessary or has to be assumed, especially when one side has seemingly overwhelming power as well as all of the weapons and bullets.